


Fishing

by MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s10e04 Paper Moon, Gen, POV Dean Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Prequel, alternating Sam and Dean first person POV, spoilers for A River Runs Through It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd/pseuds/MisplacedLonelyHeartsAd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prequel to "Paper Moon." Contains major spoilers for the movie and book <em>A River Runs Through It.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>“So where to?” I asked, and for a moment, as he dipped his head thoughtfully and then raised his eyes to mine, I thought he was going to say it: “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon.”</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fishing

 

> _It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us._
> 
> —Norman Maclean,  _A River Runs Through It and Other Stories_

 

_*****_

This is the second day we’ve been on the road together, and I still have no idea where we are headed to or where he wants to go. He’s been calling it a vacation, but it feels like an interminable bad first date. We are awkwardly polite with one another, he rushing to help me with whatever it is he thinks I need assistance with, and where I would normally snap, “Thanks, Dean, I can still pick up a pen,” or “You know, I _can_ open a door with my left hand,” I don’t now because “Have you forgotten how I held a knife at your throat left-handed while you were a demon?” might slip out afterwards.

And we seem to have decided to not talk about that. Which is par for the course, naturally. We’ve gotten over our baleful silences before, with an eventual shouting match and grudging half-apologies. But this time neither of us is fuming or spoiling for a fight. We’re solicitous, quiet, worried. Every time I meet his eyes I feel like there’s something he wants me to say, but I don’t know what it is. It’s more than a little unsettling.

I ask where we’re going as he maneuvers the car out of last night’s motel parking lot. “Breakfast,” he answers.

“No, Dean, I mean on this trip. Vacation. Whatever. Are you just gonna drive around randomly?”

He shrugs. “Why not? Just pick a direction and go, you said.”

“Yeah, I know, but—we should do something. We could…go fishing,” I suggest.

He frowns and says “What?” He has been saying that so often that I want to shout, “Did being a demon affect your hearing?” But I don’t, because it would piss him off, or worse, hurt his feelings. I know I hurt his feelings when he startled me in the bunker that morning, the day we decided to go on this aimless trip. I tried to explain that I wasn’t afraid of him, I just hadn’t expected him to appear, sudden and silent—when is he ever silent?—in front of me seated at the kitchen table. That was a lie. For an instant I was terrified, and I know he saw it. And if that ruined the bunker for him I will never forgive myself.

*****

I knew we had to get out of the bunker when I walked into the kitchen and scared the bejesus out of Sam. He dropped his box of cereal, scattering cornflakes everywhere, and then confused me by apologizing profusely.

“Dean—I’m sorry. Sorry,” he babbled. “You startled me, that’s all. Why were you sneak—I mean, I didn’t hear you. Sorry.”

I frowned at him. “Calm down, nervous Nellie,” I said. I watched him stumble around looking for a broom, making the mess worse in the process. “Here, just leave that for a minute.” He sat down and toyed with a spoon. 

I refilled his coffee cup and poured one for myself. “You know, we should get out of this place for awhile,” I suggested. He looked pained, and for a second I thought he was actually going to cry. I didn’t know why. He’d never really liked the place, not like I did.

I forced a cheerful voice. “We’ll take a vacation.”

“A _vacation_ ,” he repeated wonderingly.

“Yeah, you and me and Baby, whaddaya say?” I slapped the table with what I hoped was convincing heartiness, and he smiled a little.

“Okay,” he said in the unquestioning-little-boy tone that he occasionally still uses with me. And looking at him, I could only think, _God, how he trusts me, even now,_ and the thought was just as frightening and heartbreaking as it’s always been for my entire life.

“So where to?” I asked, and for a moment, as he dipped his head thoughtfully and then raised his eyes to mine, I thought he was going to say it: “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon.”

Then he blinked, and the moment was gone, and he shrugged. “Just pick a direction and go. We’ll figure it out on the way.”

*****

I almost said it: “Let’s go to the Grand Canyon.” But I waited a beat too long, and Dean’s eyebrows shot up impatiently, and then I felt silly. So I didn’t say it then, and now I can’t get the words out, and we’re headed in the wrong direction anyway. I remember how he likes water—oceans, rivers, lakes, little creeks, tiny ponds—and the only thing that comes to mind is fishing.

*****

Sam suggests fishing. This surprises me, because we’ve never gone fishing. Not together, anyway. I did, once or twice, with Bobby, back when I was nine or ten. Sam wasn’t with us; he had been parked at Pastor Jim’s for a few weeks in the summer. I think Bobby just figured that I could use a break from him. I don’t know where we went, and I don’t remember catching a single fish, but I do remember the light on a lake and watching the rippling water. That’s where that dream of mine comes from, I guess. I never told my brother about it, though, so why fishing?

“What?” I say. I know this annoys him. What can I say? I like seeing the prissy little turn of the corner of his mouth as he suppresses a snarky comment—I wonder how long before he snaps. I know, I know, it’s not very nice—but it’s the big brother instinct kicking in. The annoying big brother, I mean. Somehow, though, it doesn’t feel the same as usual. Sooner or later he’ll get sick of this and clam up. And I’m not sure that I can tease the sweetness back into him like I usually can.

“Fishing?” I say, and then, without thinking—why am I always talking without thinking?—“Oh man, no, I’m not doing any river-runs-through-it crap with you.”

And then I stop because we both know what happens at the end of that movie. We saw it together, snowed in at a small motel in Wisconsin, years ago. I had bitched about it at the time, purely for show and because Sam had read the book—of course he had read the book—and insisted we watch it. I got a little drunker than I intended to, just to have an excuse if I got teary-eyed at the end. Because of course you know when a movie starts out with a pair of devoted brothers that it’s gonna end in tragedy. It always does. Brad Pitt was doomed, man.

*****

“Ah, he’s doomed,” Dean said.

I looked over at him curiously. “I thought you haven’t seen this,” I remarked. “Don’t tell me you’ve read the book.”

He was a little buzzed, I thought. “Gee, thanks, Sammy, I _am_ literate, you know,” he retorted.

“You’ve read it?”

“No,” he said, “but I could have.” He took a swig from his beer and pointed it at the TV screen. “You can tell he’s doomed.”

“Why?”

“He’s the fucked-up brother, and the fucked-up brother’s always doomed.”

“Really?” I snorted, and he bristled, offended.

“Yeah,” he insisted, brandishing his beer bottle for emphasis. “Listen to the music.”

“Right, thanks for that brilliant analysis, Dean,” I said, and he threw a pillow at me.

He was quiet for a long time before he continued, “And his brother loves him.”

“What?” I said. “What does that have—”

“Shh,” he hushed me. “That’s why he’s doomed. Because his brother loves him.”

“His brother loves him, so that’s why he dies?” He nodded. “Are you drunk?”

He considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s how it works.”

“In the movies,” I added.

“Mmm,” he assented vaguely. “Don’t you ever shut up? I’m trying to watch this.”

I wondered then, and still do: which one of us does he think is the fucked-up brother?

*****

Here’s the thing: I wanted Sam to kill me. Back there with the knife at my throat, I thought I could goad him into doing it. If I had been less cruel and less cocky, I would have killed him when he first appeared in front of me, back in the bar in North Dakota, instead of toying with him. And so in some bizarre way, I have my own worst instincts and my brother’s best instincts to thank for me being here with him now.

*****

“I’m not doing any river-runs-through-it crap with you,” Dean snaps. I can tell before all the words have come out of his mouth that he regrets them. So he does remember that snowed-in day in Wisconsin. He quickly slides his glance away from mine as he continues, “I mean, I don’t want to stand in a freezing river getting tangled in a fishing line.”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “What, then?”

“I don’t really care,” he says. Then, unexpectedly, “I just want to hang out with you. Somewhere where I don’t scare the shit out of you when I come ’round the corner.”

My impulse is to plead, to turn earnest eyes to him and protest, “No, Dean, don’t say that. You don’t scare me; you’re my brother.” And it’s hard to rein that in and quip instead, “Okay, so no cornfield mazes then.” But it’s the right thing to do. Because he looks at me again, eyes crinkling, and laughs, that hard-won genuine laugh that I can never get enough of.

We’ll be on the road for a long time. We’ll get more ice for the cooler. He’ll drop a piece down the back of my shirt, then get mad when I attempt to empty the water onto his shoes. He’ll point out every animal he sees— _look, Sammy, sheep_ —and read aloud every sign we pass until I want to strangle him. He’ll bitch about slow-moving RVs and fast-moving BMWs and refuse to let me drive. When he finally relents, he’ll fall asleep against the window and wake up complaining about his neck. We’ll drive aimlessly, sitting in purposeful silence, and in spite of everything, we’ll be content.

*****

“No cornfield mazes then,” he says briskly, and I laugh in spite of myself.

I want to say, “I’m sorry, Sammy.” But I don’t because he’d just turn that around on himself. “I’m sorry, too, Dean,” and “It wasn’t your fault.” And then we’d have another uneasy where-do-we-go-from-here silence. So I just ask, “Are you hungry?” That’s what I always ask, always, since we were kids. _Are you hungry? Cold? Tired? Bleeding?_ But it’s never what I want to know: _are you angry? Scared? Sad? Sick of me?_

“Yeah, I’m starving,” he replies, and now we have a comfortable argument about where to eat, which I keep going longer than necessary just so I can see his eyes light up with the defiant spark that I love.

We’ll drive for a long time. We’ll get more gas. He’ll come out of the store pretending they didn’t have whatever I asked for— _look, Dean, just eat this banana instead_ —only to produce a package of beef jerky or a Snickers bar half an hour later. He’ll take the wheel and drive exactly eight miles an hour above the speed limit. When he thinks I’m asleep, he’ll sing to himself, warbling softly and not quite hitting the high notes. We’ll stay on the road with no purpose but to please ourselves, and though we’ll sometimes have no idea where we are, we won’t be lost.

*****

_The earth cradles the water, and the water shapes the earth. Somewhere there is a vast expanse of multi-layered rock as old as time, and a river that has cut the rock right down to its heart. Maybe we’ve been there before. Maybe we’ll never get there. It doesn’t matter. We know it’s beautiful. We know where to find it. And that’s enough for us._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I appreciate any feedback!
> 
> You can find me at: [amisplacedlonelyheartsad.tumblr.com](http://amisplacedlonelyheartsad.tumblr.com)


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